Well, the woman's flesh and her fingernails had certainly been undead. "I believe so," Skulduggery confirmed. "They're more common than you would think." Depending on your definition of 'undead,' but that was just a technicality. After all, there were people who would consider Skulduggery undead. Hadn't that been Rita's first conclusion this morning?

Rita's initial - and possibly ongoing - suspicion of Skulduggery had been a welcome breath of fresh air from the amount of people here who didn't seem too cautious with their information. Genuinely helpful people were a rarity; they simply weren't something Skulduggery was used to. So Gabe's obvious and immediate concern, distracting him even from the beads he was threading together in his hands, struck the detective completely speechless.

"No," he finally replied, his interest and distrust of the man both growing by the second. "Thank you. It's been relatively harmless so far."

That distrust outstripped the interest with Gabe's next answer. Skulduggery had met plenty of people during the war who had used that same tone of voice in their denial of association with Mevolent or the Faceless Ones, and it was usually followed by an attack. "So making rosaries is just an engaging hobby?" he asked, indicating the cross.